Elliot Guereca & Gustavo Sanchez 6th Period Japanese Imperialism in Korea
“ Japan saw itself as having to protect Korea from foreign countries”
During the 18th and early 19th century the world experienced new changes in world powers with imperialist countries and countries who experienced imperialism. One example of this would be Japanese imperialism in Korea during 1910-1945, a 35 year harsh change in Korea’s culture, impacting both countries in negative and positive ways in the years to come. Everything started during the Meiji period, a period where Japan saw change within its government creating a centralized bureaucracy. But also change within the military occurred with the replacement of Samurai authority. Trying to be equal competitors in world power as their Western neighbors. Japan had gotten imperialist ideas from 1853 when the U.S. black ships steamed
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In the late 1930’s through the mid 1940’s, Japan was at war just like the majority of the world at that time fighting in World War 2. World War 2 was a harsh time for Korea, many Koreans were sent to work in Japanese factories as well as fight on the front lines! To add on to that, it was not only men who felt Japan’s wrath. As many as 10,000 women were shipped off to war accompanying soldiers as their personal sex slaves. The cruelty did not stop following the surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces in 1945. After the war, in 1948, Korea was split in two. The Republic of Korea, controlled by the Allies, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, ruled by the Soviets. Both considering themselves the ruling government there was tension which led to North Korea’s invasion of the South on June 25th, 1950. This sparked the Korean war between the American and the Vietnamese. In 1953 the war was over and Korea was still split in two with a De militarized zone in between. Korea has remained split until this very